Cultivation starts from simplifying the exercises

Chapter 2144 All Realms Pay Homage

The last wisp of black smoke that the vengeful demon Wan Guiyuan had transformed into was completely annihilated and vanished into nothingness under the dual strangulation of the azure sword light and the power of the formation.

The suffocating, chilling, and malevolent aura in the air gradually dissipated, assimilated by the already turbid primordial energy of the ruins' shady side.

Outside the formation, Chen Fei remained calm and waved his hand lightly. The formation puppet that had been standing quietly beside him immediately changed its hand seals, and the interlocking formation that had scorched the space with scorch marks instantly lost its brilliance.

Countless crisscrossing dark golden array patterns disappeared into the void like the receding tide. If it weren't for the residual energy fluctuations in the air and the slight mess on the ground, the brief but intense battle just now would have seemed like nothing more than a dream.

As the grand formation was dispelled, the gray mist that had been temporarily isolated by its power began to permeate again.

Cao Feiyu stood holding her sword, slightly panting. Her high chest rose and fell gently with her breath. The Pure World Sword Technique she had just unleashed with all her might had depleted her already weakened Yuan Power, making her face even paler.

But her beautiful eyes shone brightly as she stared at the spot where Wan Guiyuan had vanished. She slowly exhaled a long breath, and her tense mind finally relaxed.

She slowly turned around and looked at Chen Fei not far away.

A sense of unreality, mixed with immense relief at surviving a catastrophe, overwhelmed Cao Feiyu like a tidal wave.

Not long ago, she thought she would be separated from Chen Fei by death, just like her senior brother Chu, left only with endless regret and hatred. But in the blink of an eye, Chen Fei not only returned safely, but also used thunderous methods to suppress the vengeful demon.

Her eyes welled up uncontrollably, a slight burning sensation rising to the tip of her nose. Cao Feiyu blinked, trying to suppress the wetness, but her voice trembled and became slightly hoarse.

"I thought that our parting just now... was forever." As soon as she finished speaking, Cao Feiyu herself was slightly taken aback.

But at this moment, her heart was surging with emotion, and she couldn't care less about anything else. She just stared blankly at Chen Fei to dispel the heart-wrenching illusion of despair she had just experienced.

Chen Fei looked at Cao Feiyu's slightly red eyes and listened to the undisguised fear and relief in her words, and his heart was also slightly stirred.

He could sense Cao Feiyu's complex and indescribable emotions. It was not just the joy of surviving a disaster with her fellow disciples; it seemed to contain something deeper as well.

Chen Fei's eyes flickered slightly, but her gentle smile remained unchanged: "Senior Sister, you flatter me."

Cao Feiyu didn't speak; she simply remained silent, watching Chen Fei.

The dim light of the day shone through the sparse mist onto her slightly pale yet still beautiful face. Her bright, slightly red eyes, like glass stained with water, clearly reflected Chen Fei's figure.

That gaze was so focused, so complex, containing the relief of surviving a disaster, the joy of regaining what was lost, an indescribable shock, and a trace of emotion that even she herself had not fully understood.

Cao Feiyu slowly walked up to Chen Fei, the two of them no more than three feet apart.

At this distance, she could clearly see her reflection in Chen Fei's calm eyes, feel his steady and long breaths, and even smell his faint, refreshing, and reassuring scent.

There were no words, no movements, just a silent gaze. Time seemed to slow down at that moment.

The surroundings were a deathly gray fog, desolate mountains and fields, and faint energy fluctuations left over from the fierce battle just now, but all of this seemed irrelevant to them. In Cao Feiyu's eyes, only Chen Fei remained at this moment.

After a long while, a gentle smile slowly spread across Cao Feiyu's pale lips, like a spring breeze caressing the surface of a newly thawed lake. She spoke softly, her voice low, yet carrying an unprecedented tenderness and contentment:

"This is... really good."

Those four short words seemed to have exhausted all her strength at that moment, and also contained all the emotions she had never spoken aloud.

It's so good to see you safe and sound. It's so good to be standing in front of you again. It's so good to have you by my side in this gloomy and despairing ruin!

After saying this, two faint blushes suddenly appeared on Cao Feiyu's face. She hurriedly looked away, not daring to look into Chen Fei's deep eyes that seemed to see through people's hearts. She turned around in a panic and looked at the churning gray fog in the distance, trying her best to regain her usual calmness.

"We shouldn't stay here any longer. The battle just now was quite loud. Although this place is remote, we can't guarantee that it won't attract other vengeful demons. We... should find a safe place first."

Before Chen Fei could even respond, she transformed into a streak of azure light and flew towards the depths of the ruins. However, her retreating figure seemed to carry a hint of hasty escape.

Chen Fei took in Cao Feiyu's momentary daze, emotion, shyness, and panic. He understood, a gentle smile flashing across his eyes. He then nodded and replied, "Okay."

Chen Fei flipped his left hand, and a gray-black ball of light appeared in his palm, constantly twisting and changing, emitting pure soul power fluctuations. It was the original core left behind by the vengeful demon Wan Guiyuan after his fall.

He put away the primordial energy, and with a flash, he transformed into a pale golden streak of light, following Cao Feiyu at a leisurely pace, about ten feet away.

The two walked one after the other through the thick gray fog and the desolate ruins.

Cao Feiyu seemed preoccupied, focusing solely on her journey without uttering a word. Chen Fei, on the other hand, flew while subtly spreading his divine sense, alerting himself to all movements around him.

Although the battle was brief, the fluctuations in the formation and the energy impact could indeed attract the attention of some beings. It's better to be cautious than not.

After flying for about half an hour, the scenery along the way was desolate and ruined. There were no living beings, nor any other vengeful demons or cultivators.

Cao Feiyu's speed gradually slowed down, and she finally landed on the top of a gray-black mountain with a relatively open view.

The mountaintop was covered with jagged rocks, but there was a relatively flat boulder. Cao Feiyu landed on the boulder, still with her back to Chen Fei, seemingly still calming her emotions, though the lines of her shoulders and neck were no longer as taut as before.

Chen Fei then landed, his gaze sharp as lightning, quickly scanning the surroundings. His divine sense spread out like mercury, carefully examining every inch of land and every wisp of mist on and around the mountains.

The eerie environment on the dark side of the ruins severely suppressed his divine sense, but his divine sense was far stronger than others of the same level and could still cover a considerable area.

After a moment, Chen Fei withdrew his divine sense and said gently to Cao Feiyu, "Senior Sister, this place is safe for now. Within a radius of a hundred miles, apart from some unconscious yin and filth and the fluctuations of residual restrictions, there are no traces of powerful vengeful demons or other cultivators."

Cao Feiyu slowly turned around, the blush on her face had faded, but her eyes would still unconsciously wander when she met Chen Fei's gaze.

She gave a soft "hmm" and nodded in response.

Seeing this, Chen Fei didn't say anything more. He flipped his right hand, and the swirling resentful demonic essence of Wan Guiyuan reappeared in his palm.

A flash of light appeared at his fingertips, and a sharp yet precise stream of Yuan energy swept across, evenly splitting the primordial energy in two. One half, enveloped in his Yuan energy, was gently pushed towards Cao Feiyu.

“Senior sister, you also contributed a lot to slaying this fiend, so you should get a share of this reward,” Chen Fei said calmly.

Cao Feiyu stared at the gray-black ball of light floating in front of her, slightly taken aback. Normally, she might have declined, since she felt she hadn't contributed much; the final victory over the vengeful demon was entirely due to Chen Fei's formation trapping the enemy.

But at this moment, she hesitated only for a moment before reaching out her slender hand to take the half-ball of essence and put it away. Without saying thank you, she simply nodded gently and whispered, "Okay."

Having withdrawn her demonic energy, Cao Feiyu walked to the edge of the flat boulder, found a sheltered spot, and slowly sat down cross-legged. She didn't immediately begin healing herself, but instead raised her eyes and looked at Chen Fei again.

At this moment, the complex emotions in her eyes had settled down considerably, regaining their former clarity, but the gentleness and focus remained.

"Junior Brother Chen,"

Cao Feiyu's voice was soft and gentle, like a mountain stream flowing through the air, making it exceptionally clear in the deathly silence. "Can you... tell me how you managed to escape from the encirclement of those four?"

Her question wasn't entirely out of curiosity, nor was it out of genuine suspicion. More than anything, it stemmed from a lingering sense of relief and emotional turmoil, a desire to talk to Chen Fei as much as possible.

Not long ago, in that dimly lit cave, she thought she would never see Chen Fei again in this life, and would never be able to talk to him like this again.

The fear and despair of losing it were too deeply etched in her memory. Now that she has it back, she just wants to hold onto this reality.

Chen Fei met Cao Feiyu's gentle gaze, smiled slightly, and walked to a short distance away from Cao Feiyu. Instead of sitting down, he casually leaned against a protruding rock.

"Actually, it was quite a stroke of luck."

Chen Fei spoke, his tone calm and unreadable, "After I sent you out of the barrier, Shi Pojun and the other three joined forces to attack. Their offensive was indeed fierce, and the barrier blocked our retreat."

Cao Feiyu's heart skipped a beat. Even though she knew Chen Fei was standing there unharmed, hearing about what had happened still made her feel a wave of fear.

Chen Fei continued, "I knew that a direct confrontation was not the best strategy, so while maneuvering around, I used myself as bait to stir up a very unstable area of ​​the remaining formation nearby, disrupting the combined forces of Shi Pojun and the stability of the barrier."

"Taking advantage of that moment of chaos, I used the power of the puppet array to tear open a tiny gap, which allowed me to escape from the deadly trap that was about to close completely."

Chen Fei's account downplayed the severity of the situation, portraying a thrilling counterattack as a narrow escape by chance, thanks to the advantage of location and external forces.

His tone was calm, and his expression was natural, as if it were the truth.

To make his argument more convincing, Chen Fei had a sudden thought and gave instructions to the puppets beside him.

The puppet, which had been standing still like a sculpture, flickered slightly with the ghostly blue soul fire in its eye sockets. It then pointed its finger like a sword at the core of the most complex array pattern in the center of its brow.

"Buzz!"

A deep and strange hum emanated from the puppet array, spreading out quietly.

There was no earth-shattering grandeur, no dazzling brilliance, but that area of ​​space seemed to ripple like a pebble thrown into water, creating layers of subtle ripples almost invisible to the naked eye.

Immediately afterward, under Cao Feiyu's gaze, the scene around the puppet began to change.

One, two, three... a total of nine figures identical to Chen Fei himself slowly emerged from the spatial ripples, silently appearing around the array puppets and surrounding Cao Feiyu and Chen Fei himself.

Dressed in black, with a calm expression, and even the faint smile at the corner of his mouth, he was exactly the same as Chen Fei himself, leaning against the rock.

More importantly, the aura fluctuations, Yuan Power rhythms, and even the unique life aura emanating from these nine figures are exactly the same as Chen Fei's true form, forming a seamless whole, with absolutely no flaws.

Nine figures, some standing and some standing, all calmly turned their gazes toward Cao Feiyu, as if nine real Chen Feis were appearing before her at the same time.

Cao Feiyu involuntarily stood up, her gaze shifting back and forth between the nine figures and Chen Fei himself.

With her mid-stage Tai Cang Realm cultivation, even with her full concentration on the investigation, she couldn't distinguish the difference between these nine figures and Chen Fei himself.

“This…” Cao Feiyu couldn’t help but look at Chen Fei himself.

Chen Fei smiled slightly, and with another thought, the nine figures vanished silently into the air, as if they had never existed.

"This is a secret technique recorded in the Eternal Time and Space Array Manual, called the Nine Shadows Illusion Array."

Chen Fei explained, "This array is not a simple illusion. It uses the power of the array puppet to briefly capture, imprint, and reproduce the aura of myself at a certain point in the past, and then uses the power of the array to make it manifest and stabilize, forming a near-real illusion."

These phantoms are mindless and incapable of attack, but at certain moments, they can be surprisingly effective at confusing the senses. The reason we were able to find a gap in the barrier earlier, and later deceive them, was entirely due to this method—a feint that bought us a split second.

"Junior Brother Chen..."

Cao Feiyu opened her mouth, wanting to say something, such as asking for more details about his disappearance, but in the end, all her words turned into a heartfelt exclamation: "Your formation... is truly miraculous."

Upon hearing this, Chen Fei simply smiled and said, "Senior Sister, although there are no unusual occurrences here for the time being, it is not a place to stay for long. Your injuries are quite serious, and you need to recuperate as soon as possible. I also need to rest for a while to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances."

When the topic turned to business, Cao Feiyu's eyes sharpened, and her previously complex emotions quickly subsided.

She nodded, said no more, sat down cross-legged, took out the pills and swallowed them, then closed her eyes and began to circulate her internal energy to heal her injuries.

The power of the elixir dissipated, transforming into a warm current that nourished the damaged vital energy.

Seeing Cao Feiyu close her eyes to heal her injuries and her breathing gradually stabilize, Chen Fei also withdrew his gaze. He did not lower his guard; his divine sense remained like an invisible spider web, covering an area of ​​hundreds of miles, and no movement could escape his perception.

Chen Fei walked to the other side of the mountain peak, several feet away from Cao Feiyu, and then sat down cross-legged, without immediately starting to regulate his breathing.

With a slight thought, the primordial light ball obtained from the Demon of Resentment floated out.

As the spiritual light flowed from Chen Fei's fingertips, strands of Yuan energy as thin as hair precisely pierced into that mass of gray-black origin.

"Chichi..."

Like cold water dripping into hot oil, the gray-black primordial light cluster twisted violently, and strands of dimensional fragments began to separate out.

After the film, what floated in front of Chen Fei was a semi-transparent mass of pure dimensional fragments, with what appeared to be a nebula slowly rotating inside.

After collecting these fragments of his personality into the Void Realm, Chen Fei turned his attention to the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness.

As he focused his mind, the illustrated guide he had obtained earlier in the ancient hall came to mind.

Chen Fei carefully examined the surrounding terrain for a moment, confirming his location and the contours of the terrain. There were also dozens of different points of light around him.

The closest point to Chen Fei's current location was a silver dot hundreds of thousands of miles away, which, according to the information marked on it, was a relatively well-preserved side hall.

Further away, about a million miles away, there was a complex mark interwoven with dark red and pale gold, its fluctuations intense and chaotic.

Although these ancient celestial ruins are dangerous, they are also an unimaginably vast treasure trove for Chen Fei, who has the illustrations to guide him.

Chen Fei's gaze slowly moved across the silver and pale gold dots projected in the catalog. These markers represented the remaining buildings or special areas of the ancient Heavenly Court.

What was the ancient Heavenly Court like? It ruled over all the heavens, and all realms paid homage to it. At its peak, it gathered the most advanced cultivation techniques and secret manuals, the rarest natural treasures, the most mysterious magical weapons and divine artifacts, as well as countless inherited items containing the true meaning of the Great Dao.

Even after the catastrophe, the collapse of the Heavenly Court, and its fall into the rift between Yin and Yang, turning into a desolate ruin, what remained was still an astonishing fortune for a cultivator of Chen Fei's level.

Chen Fei took a deep breath to suppress the turmoil in his heart. Those marked palaces and ruins were by no means easy paths.

Even in its dilapidated state, the restrictions of the ancient Heavenly Court are by no means easy to break. They may harbor even more powerful vengeful demons, conceal unknown mysteries, or be filled with temporal and spatial turbulence and law traps.

Exploring these places is far more dangerous than simply hunting down vengeful demons.

However, the path of cultivation is inherently about defying fate and fighting against destiny. If one dares not take risks, how can one expect to find opportunities?

"The most urgent task is to wait for Senior Sister Cao's injuries to stabilize."

Chen Fei withdrew his divine sense and turned his gaze to Cao Feiyu, who was still healing with her eyes closed not far away. Her pale face had regained some color, and her breathing was much more steady and long, indicating that the healing was progressing smoothly.

"Then, I'll go check out the nearest silver marker." Chen Fei had already made up his mind.

Start by exploring areas where the risks are relatively manageable. Once you are better prepared and both of you are in better condition, then you can try to target those potentially more dangerous areas marked with pale gold.

With the plan set, Chen Fei stopped thinking about it and slowly closed his eyes to begin regulating his breathing.

Time flows almost stagnant in this forgotten ruin. Gloom is the eternal theme, and the sound of the wind is the only accompaniment.

Two hours, under the unchanging light on the shady side of the ruins, seemed like just a fleeting moment.

Cao Feiyu, sitting cross-legged on a giant rock atop the mountain, was surrounded by a faint, azure light, like a tranquil lake reflecting the ceaseless flow of spiritual energy within her.

The water sometimes flowed like a gentle stream, softly cleansing and repairing damaged meridians and internal organs. At other times, it surged like a deep-sea current, bursting forth with powerful vitality, dispelling the last trace of chilling and corrosive energy remaining from the vengeful demon. (End of Chapter)